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There's this interesting site Tracing African Roots where the webmaster compare dna results with historical documents to trace african origins from the Afro diaspora. He collected over a thousand dna results from AncestryDNA.

Ancestry DNA only reflects those who have tested so cannot be used as anything other than a general indicator of ancestries.

The Cameroon/Congo combination is nonsense given that Cameroon is next to Nigeria and many of the people transported from that region were boarded in vessels in what will now be south east Nigeria They use this because the sample sizes are very small.

Also what Ancestry DNA is trying to do is to impose on ancient states the borders of modern countries. In fact "Benin/Togo" reflects populations from south east Ghana to southwest Nigeria. "Nigeria" is meaningless, given the diversity of that region.

While there is some usefulness in Ancestry DNA people must not use it as anything other than a general indicator.

Ancestry DNA only reflects those who have tested so cannot be used as anything other than a general indicator of ancestries.

The Cameroon/Congo combination is nonsense given that Cameroon is next to Nigeria and many of the people transported from that region were boarded in vessels in what will now be south east Nigeria They use this because the sample sizes are very small.

Also what Ancestry DNA is trying to do is to impose on ancient states the borders of modern countries. In fact "Benin/Togo" reflects populations from south east Ghana to southwest Nigeria. "Nigeria" is meaningless, given the diversity of that region.

While there is some usefulness in Ancestry DNA people must not use it as anything other than a general indicator.

Look at the maps of ancestry.com from Europe. Eastern Europe is a designation. Northwest Russia/Finland is a designation. Southern Europe is a designation. the Iberian peninsula is a designation. Ancestry.com tests DNA for regions, as ethnic groups next to each other often have similar DNA.

No one is ever going to be likely to trace an ancestor back to a particular village. The best one can do is to know what regions show up in one's DNA profile.

Look at the maps of ancestry.com from Europe. Eastern Europe is a designation. Northwest Russia/Finland is a designation. Southern Europe is a designation. the Iberian peninsula is a designation. Ancestry.com tests DNA for regions, as ethnic groups next to each other often have similar DNA.

No one is ever going to be likely to trace an ancestor back to a particular village. The best one can do is to know what regions show up in one's DNA profile.

One has to do additional research to begin to understand the results. Starting off with the fact that peoples moved around long before the modern nations developed. So some knowledge of those movements is helpful.

Vanessa Williams has Nordic ancestry. Does this mean that some Swede or Finn married into her family? No. It means that within her ancestry are people likely from northeast England or Scotland, these people carrying "Viking" ancestry.

So yes the results are useful, but are only a guideline. And a rough one at that for Africa where the sampling was really small.

One has to do additional research to begin to understand the results. Starting off with the fact that peoples moved around long before the modern nations developed. So some knowledge of those movements is helpful.

Vanessa Williams has Nordic ancestry. Does this mean that some Swede or Finn married into her family? No. It means that within her ancestry are people likely from northeast England or Scotland, these people carrying "Viking" ancestry.

So yes the results are useful, but are only a guideline. And a rough one at that for Africa where the sampling was really small.

For all regions, the results on ancestry.com and other sites are evolving as they get more samples from around the world. So there's that.

Ancestry DNA only reflects those who have tested so cannot be used as anything other than a general indicator of ancestries.

The Cameroon/Congo combination is nonsense given that Cameroon is next to Nigeria and many of the people transported from that region were boarded in vessels in what will now be south east Nigeria They use this because the sample sizes are very small.

Also what Ancestry DNA is trying to do is to impose on ancient states the borders of modern countries. In fact "Benin/Togo" reflects populations from south east Ghana to southwest Nigeria. "Nigeria" is meaningless, given the diversity of that region.

While there is some usefulness in Ancestry DNA people must not use it as anything other than a general indicator.

Nevertheless, even with this small number of dna results by comparing them with the Trans-Atlantic Slave trade data we can see there are several factors that can also be taken into account such as the date of arrival of the slaves, the domestic slave trade or the inter-colonial slave trade and that's something I didn't think of.

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